Day One

In nine months, a small cluster of microscopic cells can be transformed into a living being complete with beating heart, facial features, arms, and legs. Yet, in nine months, Viv and I can’t agree on a name for our baby. We have gone through baby books, the social security website, babynames.com, and countless other sources without an aha moment. We went to watch Hunger Games: Catching Fire the other night and got excited when the movies’ end credits started scrolling up the screen in hopes that the magical name would slap us in face and fall on our laps. It didn’t happen.

So here I am, thumbing through pages of yet another baby name book that the nurse lent me last night.

Early names that were eliminated:

Ed's List
Colin -> Annie and Daniel's boy
Mason -> Cheryl's boy
Griffin
Chase

Viv's List
Ian
Owen
Coen
Ethan

We have it narrowed down to two now:

Trey
Connor

I am edging towards Connor. I look up the name in the dictionary and it’s of Irish descent. Connor means “Wolf Lover”. I’ve always loved wolves, so I can live with this meaning.

We run the names by our families with some mixed response. We eliminate Trey, but decide to wait another day before finalizing on Connor.

Our parents come by for a visit in the morning. Their faces beam with pride and joy when they see our baby for the first time.

My mom prepared a home cooked meal for us. For the last two days, we’ve been ordering from a pretty limited hospital menu and one can only eat so many microwavable chicken pot pies, so having real home cooked Chinese food was just what the doctor ordered. We are lucky to have such a supportive and caring family.

My dad tells me he has come up with a Chinese name. It is 達安. 達 is the same first character as my brothers’ sons’ name. Using the same character is intended to tie our families together. 達 means “to reach or attain” and 安 means “calm or peace”. We decided to use the phonetic spelling of this name as our sons’ middle name. We combined the two characters into one word and spelled it “Doton”. At least we have his middle name now.

Thanks MaMa, YehYeh, PawPaw, and GungGung for all your support. Connor is lucky to have such awesome grandparents!

Thanks to Kitty (Kai Ma), Katie, Julian, and Ada for coming by and visiting us. We are blessed to have such great friends.